


The Ghosts of Ward 15

by madamteatime



Category: Dong Bang Shin Ki
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Mental Institutions, Schizophrenia, Self-Harm, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-20
Updated: 2013-03-02
Packaged: 2017-12-03 06:06:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 11
Words: 18,724
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/695046
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/madamteatime/pseuds/madamteatime
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There’s a place in the world for people like them, and that place is either hell or redemption. But how can they know which it is if they can’t even tell the difference?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

They come for him while he’s still kneeling on the floor, hands covered in blood and head ringing with the sound of his mother’s screams.  
  
Somebody yanks him to his feet and they snap handcuffs around his wrists and Changmin goes with them quietly, because he’s not quite sure what just happened but it seems easier not to resist. There’s no trial, because he fails the court-appointed psychiatrist’s evaluation and is immediately transferred to a mental hospital. Her diagnosis rings in his ears as he lies on the impersonal white sheets of his bed in ward 15 of Gonjiam Psychiatric Hospital.  
  
 _Paranoid schizophrenic with tendencies towards violence and self-harm._  
  
Changmin stares up at the ceiling and repeats the only truth he knows anymore.  
  
“I’m not crazy,” he whispers through dry and cracked lips. “I’m not crazy.”  
  
\- - -  
  
The first few days pass by in a blur. Nurses come and go, bringing pills and shots of apathy with them. At first they have him strapped to the bed, but when he shows no signs of fighting them they let him free. In fact Changmin is the epitome of a model patient – he always takes his pills without fuss, he’s polite to the nurses and friendly with the guards outside his door. He’s confined to his room for observation, though what the doctors hope to observe Changmin can’t imagine. The room is small and sparsely furnished, no more than a bed, a dresser, a desk and a chair. Changmin has brought few things with him, but those that he has he arranges neatly and with precise care. His clothes, pressed and folded, are organized in the dresser by type and colour. His few personal items go on the desk – a watch, a box of tissues, some hand cream, and a small, slender book of poetry. He isn’t allowed any technology, so this he finds himself poring over again and again in the weeks that come, until each line of verse is committed to memory, each stanza given some unique significance. That book of poetry feels like the last semblance of his tenuous grip on sanity.  
  
Eventually when they decide he’s not an immediate threat to anyone else they let him out to mingle with the other patients. Changmin finds this exercise mostly pointless, because the other patients either already have their own friend cliques, aren’t interested in making friends or are too crazy to be anyone’s friend but their own. He finds that he doesn’t care if he falls into the third category; it’s enough for now to just be let out of his room.  
  
He explores the building as best he can, all unforgiving stone walls and narrow windows that are much too high and let in too little sunlight. He is thus preoccupied one afternoon, standing on a rickety old stool to catch a glimpse of the grounds below when someone speaks from behind him.  
  
“Can you open it?”  
  
Changmin glances around. A boy slightly older than himself is blinking owlishly up at him. He has messy brown hair and unnaturally pale skin, as though he doesn’t get enough sunlight. The faint lines of old scars are visible on his face.  
  
“Huh?”  
  
“Can you open the window?” The stranger repeats. “I can’t reach it but you’re kinda tall so I figured you might be able to. It’s really hot in here.”  
  
Changmin looks around them. Guards are lingering on either end of the hallway and a couple of nurses walk past, but nobody is paying much attention to them.  
  
“Are we allowed? I thought they had them shut for a reason,” he says. The other boy shrugs.  
  
“What reason? It’s not like anyone could fling themselves out of one. I don’t think even you would fit, toothpick.”  
  
Changmin scowls. “If you want someone to do something for you maybe you shouldn’t call them names,” he says.  
  
The boy grins and stuffs both hands in his pockets. “Sorry. I forgot for a second that we’re strangers.”  
  
Changmin sighs and reaches up to unlatch the window. The metal is old and rusting, and it gets stuck as he tries to yank it open. “Didn’t your parents teach you any manners?” he grunts.  
  
“They did,” the boy says cheerfully. “I just chose not to listen.”  
  
The window springs free with an almighty creak, and Changmin jumps back as dust rains down on him. The other boy cheers as a sudden gust of wind bursts into the room, and when it ruffles his hair Changmin finds a smile tugging at his lips.  
  
The boy’s name is Kyuhyun, and he introduces Changmin to his friend Ryeowook, a quiet, ferrety-looking boy who eyes Changmin with suspicion until Kyuhyun vouches for him with a casual, “He’s cool.”  
  
Kyuhyun and Ryeowook are both 19, a year older than Changmin, which Kyuhyun declares makes them his hyungs and thus betters. Changmin tells him to go shove it, but Kyuhyun insists until Changmin puts him in a headlock and sits on him. Over Kyuhyun’s flailing and muffled protests he hears the soft sound of Ryeowook’s laughter, and it’s so surprisingly sweet Changmin finds himself charmed despite his initial reservations.  
  
Once a week the patients are allowed a day out on the hospital grounds as a reward for good behavior. Kyuhyun, Changmin and Ryeowook haven’t been good – within the month that they become friends they break into the nurses’ station and blast rock music over the PA system, start a food fight in the cafeteria and smuggle a cat into Changmin’s room – but they sneak out amidst the other patients and the nurses are too distracted to notice.  
  
After weeks stuck indoors the world outside fills Changmin with delight. The hospital is surrounded by pretty, well-kept gardens and they run down a random path that opens onto a wide oval. Changmin flings himself down under a tree and gazes up at the clear blue sky.  
  
“Oh god, I’d almost forgotten what it looked like,” he sighs. Something shuffles in the undergrowth nearby and then a fluffy white cat scampers into view.  
  
“Whiskers!” Ryeowook says, scooping her into his arms. “I was so sad they made us let you go.”  
  
“And the award for the most original cat name ever goes to. . .” Kyuhyun drawls. Ryeowook sticks his tongue out at him.  
  
Changmin grins and rolls over, watching them bicker for a while until he grows bored of it and interrupts.  
  
“Hey can I ask you something?” he says. Kyuhyun breaks off mid-sentence and inclines his head. Changmin hesitates. “Um. What are you in for?”  
  
It’s not a topic most patients like to discuss, and somehow the subject hasn’t come up between them yet. But Changmin can’t contain his curiosity any longer, because Kyuhyun and Ryeowook seem way too normal to be in here.  
  
Kyuhyun laughs and puffs out his chest. “I’m bipolar. Or manic-depressive, as my high school counselor liked to call it. He was really stupid, which was part of why I beat him up and landed in here.”  
  
Changmin gapes at him. Ryeowook seems less willing to open up, but eventually he puts the cat down and sighs.  
  
“I have multiple personality disorder,” he says softly. “I, er, have episodes where I become a different person. It’s weird.”  
  
Changmin swallows. Ryeowook glances at him sideways, as though he’s afraid Changmin will judge him, but Changmin doesn’t meet his gaze.  
  
“What about you?” Kyuhyun asks. There’s a hint of aggression in his tone, and Changmin knows that to refuse to share now would be callous.  
  
“I’m schizophrenic,” he says, and leaves it at that. Kyuhyun snorts and lies back on the grass, muttering something about how of course the cool guy gets the fancy disease. The momentary tension dissipates and a comfortable silence replaces it. Ryeowook goes back to playing with Whiskers and Changmin finds himself gazing across the grounds. Other patients loiter here and there, many from different wards and floors.  
  
A flash of colour catches his eye. Someone is walking past the rose bushes, someone tall and broad and golden-haired. As though sensing that he’s being watched, the stranger raises his head and glances back in Changmin’s direction.  
  
Changmin’s breath catches in his throat. Slanted, kittenish eyes blink at him from a sweet and handsome face. The stranger’s lips part, and Changmin makes a small sound in the back of his throat.  
  
“Who’s that?” he whispers, unable to tear his gaze away. Kyuhyun glances over.  
  
“Where? Point them out.”  
  
Changmin gives him an exasperated look.  
  
“It’s rude to point.”  
  
“Then how am I supposed to know who the hell you’re talking about?”  
  
“Can’t you tell where I was looking? It’s that guy by the rose bushes,” Changmin glances back at the spot, but there’s no-one there. He blinks and looks around at his friends.  
  
“There was nobody there Changmin,” Ryeowook says softly.  
  
“But I – ” Changmin bites down on his bottom lip and cuts himself off. He’s learnt the hard way not to always trust what his eyes see; it would be unlucky for him to make any new imaginary friends while he’s here.


	2. Chapter 2

Twice a week Changmin has appointments with Dr Hwang, the in-house psychiatrist assigned to his case. Changmin likes the tall, soft-spoken man and his unassuming demeanor. He asks him about his time at the hospital, whether he feels well taken care of and if he’s made any friends. Changmin tells him about Kyuhyun and Ryeowook and Dr Hwang nods and listens and makes notes. He asks no questions about Changmin’s assumedly delicate grip on sanity or what had happened before he came to Gonjiam – for the most part he simply seems interested in hearing about his day. Changmin hesitates over telling him of the vision he saw out on the grounds, then figures that if anyone deserves to know that he’s seeing things again it should be Dr Hwang.  
  
“I, er, saw something the other day. Someone,” Changmin starts.  
  
“Oh? And when was this?” Dr Hwang asks.  
  
“A few days ago, when we were allowed out on the grounds.”  
  
“It says here that you were not given permission to go out on the grounds that day,” Dr Hwang consults his file. Changmin flushes with guilt, anticipating a reprimand, but the doctor merely smiles and nods for him to continue.  
  
“He was this tall blonde guy, seriously good-looking but . . .my friends couldn’t see him,” Changmin twists his fingers in his lap. Dr Hwang raises an eyebrow.  
  
“Indeed? How odd. Describe this person to me.”  
  
“Um, I only saw him for like a second and only from afar. But he was pretty cute, broad shoulders, small face. It sounds crazy right? Why would someone that good-looking be in here?”  
  
Now the doctor appears amused. “Why indeed. Perhaps you should ask him.”  
  
“What? No no, I can’t engage him. It’ll just make everything worse – I’m supposed to be ignoring my visions – ”  
  
“On the contrary, I believe speaking to this vision might be of benefit to you,” Dr Hwang smiles. “Ignoring a problem rarely has the effect of making it go away.”  
  
Changmin mulls over the doctor’s suggestion. He sees the handsome stranger twice more, once when he’s leaving the cafeteria and once walking in the opposite direction down a hallway. Both times the stranger doesn’t notice Changmin, but Changmin notices him and it scares him. He’d thought he was getting better, but if his hallucinations are back then it’s only a short descent into madness and he doesn’t want to go back to that place.  
  
He confesses all this to Ryeowook one day while they’re sitting against a wall in the common room. Kyuhyun is nowhere to be found, which Changmin thinks may he a blessing because he’d probably just make fun of him for being scared of an imaginary man.  
  
“Dr Hwang said I should speak to him,” Changmin says, chewing his bottom lip. Nearby, a female patient is conducting a lengthy conversation with the wall.  
  
“What a terrible idea,” Ryeowook shakes his head. “I think the best thing you can do is ignore it until it goes away.”  
  
“What if it doesn’t go away?”  
  
Ryeowook squeezes his hand. “It’s okay. Just don’t let it get to you.”  
  
“Changmin dear? It’s time for your medicine,” one of the nurses calls. Changmin gets up and takes his pills obediently. The elderly nurse smiles at him. “Do you need anything to keep you occupied dear? A book perhaps?”  
  
Changmin blinks at her, then glances back at Ryeowook. Can’t she see that he’s plenty occupied talking to his friend? Still, he shakes his head politely and thanks her before returning to Ryeowook’s side. The nurses never call Ryeowook or Kyuhyun for medicine rounds, Changmin assumes because they’ve already weaned themselves off their medications. He’s secretly jealous of them for it.  
  
He’s curled up on the common room couch a few days later, alone and absorbed in his book of poetry. He knows each poem in it by heart by now, but not all of them make sense to him so he keeps going back and reading them again and again.  
  
“Lord Byron,” a warm voice says from behind him. “One of the more pretentious romantics in my opinion.”  
  
Changmin looks up and freezes. His handsome stranger is smiling down at him, arms folded along the back of the sofa. He’s wearing a long-sleeved white shirt made of some flimsy material through which a plain tank top is visible. Changmin’s mouth goes dry.  
  
“You . . .read poetry?” he manages. The stranger laughs and walks around to sit down beside him.  
  
“No, I just had to write a book report on him in school once, which naturally resulted in some lingering animosity.”  
  
Changmin almost smiles before he remembers that he shouldn’t be talking to his hallucinations, Dr Hwang’s suggestions be damned. He looks back at his book quickly, trying to ignore the heat emanating from the stranger at his side. There’s a short silence, then the other man speaks again.  
  
“You probably don’t remember me, but I saw you out on the grounds last week and . . . I’ve been trying to find out which floor you were on ever since.”  
  
Changmin stops reading. His fingers tighten on his book until his knuckles turn white. The stranger laughs embarrassedly.  
  
“I’m sorry, that probably sounds really creepy. I just wanted to say hi.”  
  
Changmin drops his book and covers his ears. He scrunched his eyes shut and tries to block the voice to his left.  
  
“He’s not real,” he whispers over and over. “Stop it. He’s not real, he’s not real – ”  
  
“Hey.” The other man slides down to crouch in front of him. He places his hands over Changmin’s, cupping his face. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you. I just wanted to say hi.”  
  
Changmin stares at him, throat clogged and head spinning.  
  
“You’re not real,” he repeats. The stranger’s brow furrows in confusion.  
  
“Why would you say that?”  
  
“My friends can’t see you. I’m the only one who can see you, which means you only exist in my head. You’re just another hallucination. You – ”  
  
“Yunho, are you upsetting poor Changmin? I think he prefers to be alone dear,” one of the nurses says from nearby. Changmin stares at her as the stranger called Yunho turns to her with an apologetic smile.  
  
“I’m so sorry. I didn’t realize – ”  
  
“You can see him?” Changmin interrupts.  
  
“Of course dear,” the nurse says. “And I must say, lucky me for that.”  
  
Yunho throws his head back and laughs. He lets go of Changmin and bounces to his feet.  
  
“Minyoung, you old flirt! I already told you nothing good can come of our affair.”  
  
Nurse Minyoung laughs and swats at him. Since she’s about 90 years old and half Yunho’s height it’s not very threatening, but Yunho clutches at his heart and flops back down beside Changmin.  
  
“See how she treats me. And all because I forgot to bring her flowers on Valentine’s Day.”  
  
He grins at Changmin, but when Changmin only continues to blink at him in confusion he grows serious and shuffles closer.  
  
“If I’m only a hallucination then how come Minyoungie can see me?” Yunho asks. Changmin hesitates.  
  
“My friends said they couldn’t see you . . .” he ventures.  
  
“Which friends are these?”  
  
“Kyuhyun and Ryeowook . . .”  
  
“I don't know anyone called that around here, but I’d love to meet them,” Yunho says cheerfully. “I’m Yunho by the way,” he sticks his hand out and Changmin shakes it slowly. Yunho’s hand is large and warm in his, and his slender fingers slide between Changmin’s so naturally it makes Changmin blush. He looks down.  
  
“Changmin,” he stutters. Yunho smiles.  
  
“It’s nice to meet you Changmin.”


	3. Chapter 3

“You lied to me,” Changmin corners Kyuhyun and Ryeowook on the roof of the hospital. It’s midnight and they’ve snuck out of their rooms to smoke some cigarettes that Kyuhyun produced out of seemingly nowhere.  
  
“Yunho’s real,” Changmin continues. “The nurses can see him. Why would you do that?”  
  
“What are you talking about?” Kyuhyun frowns. “Is that the imaginary man you’ve been seeing? There’s no-one called Yunho in this entire hospital.”  
  
“How do you know that?”  
  
“Did we or did we not break into the nurses station a few weeks ago? All the patient files are there.”  
  
“You – ” Changmin rubs his head and steps back. Something doesn’t add up here; something doesn’t feel right . . .  
  
“Changmin?” Ryeowook says softly. “Are you okay?”  
  
Kyuhyun blows out a stream of smoke and snorts. “Of course he’s not, look at him. This Yunho guy’s gotten to him, making him think he’s crazy and shit.”  
  
“He’s not – he said – ”  
  
“He’s lying to you,” Kyuhyun bursts out. “Isn’t that what you said the visions do? They lie to you and make you do things you shouldn’t!”  
  
“No, stop it. Stop lying to me!” Changmin shoves Kyuhyun and he stumbles back. There’s a small silence, and Changmin sees rage flash in Kyuhyun’s eyes. He drops his cigarette and crushes it under his shoe with slow deliberateness.  
  
“I’m going to pretend you didn’t just do that,” Kyuhyun says, voice low and menacing. Changmin shrinks back. He glances at Ryeowook for help but Ryeowook just looks at the ground and sidles towards Kyuhyun.  
  
“I – sorry,” Changmin stutters.  
  
“What the hell is wrong with you?” Kyuhyun demands. Changmin slides down the wall and clutches his head in his hands.  
  
“I don't know,” he whispers. “I don’t know.”  
  
\- - -  
  
He doesn’t see Yunho again for a week, and Changmin starts to think Kyuhyun and Ryeowook might actually be right about him, that maybe he did just imagine the whole thing. It makes him suspicious of everyone around him and he retreats into his room and refuses to come out for days. Changmin hates this part of himself, the part that only sees lies everywhere and can’t tell reality from fantasy. Feeling trapped and claustrophobic, he begs nurse Minyoung to let him out onto the grounds for a few hours. She hesitates to grant his request, but in the face of his desperate pleas and killer puppy eyes she eventually relents.  
  
“One hour only,” she says. “And I’ll keep an eye on you from the door.”  
  
Changmin nods and runs off, breathing in the crisp autumn air with relief. He crunches over dead leaves and makes a right, heading towards the tree under which he’d first seen Yunho. Book in hand, he’s soon lost in the pages of verse until he hears someone approaching across the grounds. Changmin looks up and sees Yunho smile and raise a hand in greeting as he spots him. He ducks under a branch and settles down beside Changmin.  
  
“So. You’re a paranoid schizophrenic,” Yunho says without preamble. Changmin snorts and looks back down at his book.  
  
“How’d you guess that one.”  
  
“Well, you thinking I’m a hallucination was sort of a dead giveaway,” Yunho grins. When Changmin remains unamused he grows serious. “I had an uncle who was schizophrenic. We used to play hide and seek together when I was a kid and he’d tell me the North Koreans would come and get me if I didn’t find a good enough hiding spot.”  
  
Changmin closes his book and looks over at Yunho, who’s pulling at the grass around his feet.  
  
“When I grew a bit older I realized he actually believed what he was saying. He really did think the North Koreans were coming for us,” Yunho continues. “When I grew a bit older still and watched his disease rip his family apart, I realized that just because his reality was different to ours didn’t make it any less real. Just because the North Koreans weren’t actually coming to get my uncle didn’t make it any less true, because it’s what he believed was true. You know what I’m saying?”  
  
Changmin swallows. “Yeah. Yeah I know what you’re saying.”  
  
Yunho smiles at him. “So these friends of yours. The ones who claim they can’t see me. Can I meet them?”  
  
“Now?” Changmin asks. “I don’t know where they are right now . . .”  
  
“Do you know what their room numbers are? We can go look for them.”  
  
Changmin falters. “I . . .don’t know their room numbers,” he admits.  
  
“Do you know which ward they’re in?”  
  
“No . . .” Changmin trails off. “We don’t really talk about that stuff. We like to pretend we’re somewhere else most of the time. Somewhere other than here.”  
  
“But Changmin. You are here,” Yunho says softly. “Maybe it’s time to accept that.”  
  
Changmin looks away. “My friends say you’re lying to me,” he mumbles unconvincingly.  
  
“No offence Changmin, but they don’t sound like very good friends,” Yunho sighs.  
  
“Prove to me that you’re real,” Changmin says suddenly. “I need to know for sure. I . . .I want you to be real.” He looks down, a blush spreading across his cheeks.  
  
Yunho looks thoughtful for a second before a smile lights his face.  
  
“How do you feel about a bit of breaking and entering?”  
  
\- - -  
  
For a hospital with over 300 patients Gonjiam still maintains the rather old fashioned habit of keeping paper records of patient files. These records are housed in the doctors offices and the nurses stations. Since the prank Changmin and his friends pulled with the PA system the nurses stations have been installed with increased security, so Yunho leads him to the doctors floor. It’s the same floor as his, one below Changmin’s.  
  
“I don’t think this is a good idea,” Changmin whispers, glancing around nervously. The hallway is dark and deserted, everyone having long since gone to sleep.  
  
“Relax,” Yunho says. “I have a key,” he holds up the object before unlocking the door and pushing it open.  
  
“How – “ Changmin begins.  
  
“Dr Hwang lets me come in here at night sometimes to use the library,” Yunho explains. “He’s the psychiatrist in charge of my case.”  
  
Changmin smiles. “Mine too.” Yunho must be a pretty low-risk patient for them to entrust him with keys to private offices. Changmin’s burning to ask him what he’s in for, but he’s not sure if the question will be welcome.  
  
“This isn’t exactly the breaking and entering you promised,” Changmin says once the door shuts behind them. Yunho laughs and goes over to the filing cabinets.  
  
“Sorry, I just thought it sounded cooler than ‘how do you feel about using my spare key to check out the patient files in the doctors offices.’”  
  
Changmin hides a smile behind his hand. “I see your point,” he admits. He joins Yunho at the filing cabinets and they rifle through various patient names, all arranged neatly in alphabetical order.  
  
“Here’s you,” Yunho pulls out the folder labeled ‘Shim Changmin’ and hands it to him. “And see? Here’s mine.”  
  
Changmin gazes at the slim file in Yunho’s hands and licks his lips nervously.  
  
“Can I see your file?” he asks. Yunho hesitates, his fingers tightening briefly on the folder, but then he shrugs and passes it over. Changmin flips it open as Yunho goes back to rifling through the filing cabinet.  
  
“Can I read it out loud?” Changmin asks.  
  
“Sure, it’s nothing I don’t already know,” Yunho says.  
  
“Patient Jung Yunho,” Changmin reads. “Born February 6th, 1986. Admitted April 25th, 2005.” Changmin looks up. “That was one year ago.”  
  
Yunho nods but doesn’t offer anything else so Changmin keeps reading.  
  
“Patient admitted through family referral. Your family had you put in here?” Changmin asks softly. Yunho has stopped rifling through the filing cabinet and gone very still.  
  
“Keep reading,” he says, voice low. Changmin swallows and looks down again.  
  
“Reason for admittance: multiple suicide attempts. Diagnosis: patient has severe, clinical depression.” There follows a list of prescribed medication but Changmin doesn’t bother reading that out. He closes Yunho’s file carefully and looks up at him.  
  
It occurs to him now that he has never seen Yunho wear anything less than full-sleeved shirts, and the reason for that suddenly becomes horribly clear. Changmin sets their folders aside and moves towards him. His eyes flicker up, silently seeking permission, and Yunho gives a miniscule nod. Changmin takes hold of his wrist, unbuttons the cuff and rolls his sleeve up.  
  
New and old scars mottle the skin of Yunho’s forearm, some so large they could’ve only been made with a knife, others just tiny nail scratches. Changmin takes hold of his other wrist, gazes at the same slashed tapestry of his other arm.  
  
“But you’re so happy all the time,” Changmin whispers, numb with disbelief. Yunho’s lips twist in a bitter little smile.  
  
“That’s probably how I ended up in here.”  
  
Changmin reaches out to trace the shape of a scar but Yunho catches his hand and laces their fingers together.  
  
“Still think I’m just a figment of your imagination?” he asks quietly. Changmin looks down and shakes his head. They’re standing so close together now that he can feel Yunho all around him, his breath and scent and heat.  
  
“One more thing,” Yunho says, quieter still. “There are no records of a Kyuhyun or a Ryeowook in these patient files.”  
  
Changmin’s head snaps up. He stares at Yunho, a strange buzzing sound filling his head. Yunho doesn’t look very surprised, but at least there’s no pity in his eyes.  
  
“They don’t exist Changmin.”


	4. Chapter 4

  
Changmin doesn’t remember how he gets back to his room. Somehow he manages to keep it together in front of Yunho, even smiling and bidding him goodnight. Yunho hesitates, eyeing him with concern, but Changmin waves him off.  
  
“It’s okay,” he says. “I’m used to it.”  
  
But the moment the door closes behind him he flings himself down on the bed, curls up tight and screams into his pillow.  
  
All this time while he thought he was getting better he’d been just as fucked up as before, and of course nobody had said anything because around here patients talking to empty air was practically expected. The nurses would have noticed nothing odd about his behavior – nothing odder than usual, anyway.  
  
Bitter, angry tears soak his pillow. That night Changmin doesn’t sleep.  
  
He determines to surround himself with people as often as possible, because usually the visions find him when he’s alone. But he can’t hide for long, because a few days later he finds himself alone in the common room and feels a presence at his side.  
  
“Why are you avoiding us?” Kyuhyun demands. Changmin trips over his feet as he hurries to stand.  
  
“No. No, you’re not real.”  
  
“Oh great, now we’re not real either,” Kyuhyun rolls his eyes. “Tell me Changmin, is there anything in your life that  _is_  real?”  
  
“Why are you saying that Changmin?” Ryeowook asks softly. “Don’t you like us anymore?”  
  
“That’s not – I saw the patient files. I didn’t believe Yunho at first but then I looked for myself and you’re not there. You were never there. You’re not patients here because _you don’t exist_.”  
  
“What kind of ridiculous lies has he been filling your head with now?” Kyuhyun says. He advances on Changmin and Changmin stumbles back, eyes darting around the room for an escape.  
  
“So just because we’re not in the hospital records it means we don’t exist? Maybe our files just got misplaced,” Ryeowook gives him a quizzical little smile. Changmin meets his eye, and he hates what he sees there.  
  
“Stop looking at me like that,” he says.  
  
“Like what?”  
  
“Stop looking at me like I’m crazy!” He makes to turn away but Kyuhyun grabs his arm.  
  
“Where the hell are you going?” he says, nails digging into his skin. Changmin flinches.  
  
“Don’t touch me!” he squirms out of Kyuhyun’s grip and runs, their voices calling out from behind him.  
  
“Hey! We’re talking to you here,” Kyuhyun calls after him. Changmin runs faster, the hallway passing by in a blur, his head filled with a high-pitched buzzing sound and phantom whispers. Tears sting his eyes as he rounds the corner and slams into someone coming the opposite way. Strong arms automatically rise to hold him and Changmin gasps, struggling against them before he looks up and sees Yunho blinking at him. Changmin is so relieved to see him he could cry.  
  
“Oh god, Yunho help me, they’re right behind me – ”  
  
“Shh calm down,” Yunho says. Changmin shakes his head and buries his face in his chest, breathless and shaking. “It’s okay,” Yunho says in his ear. “I’ve got you.”  
  
“They’re coming for me,” Changmin whimpers. Yunho strokes his back and waits for his trembling to stop.  
  
“Better?” He asks after a while. Changmin makes a non-committal sound, still too scared to raise his head from Yunho’s chest. “Close your eyes and take a deep breath,” Yunho says softly.  
  
Changmin obeys automatically and feels his heartbeat slow down a little.  
  
“Good. Now turn around.”  
  
Changmin’s fingers clench in Yunho’s shirt. “I can’t, they’ll see me, I – ”  
  
“Shh, it’s okay. It’s going to be okay. Here, I’ll turn with you.” Still holding Changmin safe in his arms, Yunho shuffles them around so that Changmin is facing the way he came.  
  
“Okay. Now open your eyes.”  
  
Changmin whimpers and shakes his head.  
  
“I’ve got you,” Yunho says softly. “I won’t let anyone hurt you.”  
  
Slowly, carefully, Changmin opens his eyes. The hallway is deserted. No voices whisper in his head, no images flicker at the edge of his vision. There’s nothing at all except the sound of Yunho’s deep, even breathing and the ray of sunlight bathing them from the narrow window.  
  
“You see? There’s no-one there,” Yunho says. Changmin lets out a breath and buries his face in his shoulder.  
  
After a few minutes, when he’s come back to his senses, Changmin realizes he’s standing in the middle of the hallway clinging to someone he barely knows and untangles himself from Yunho with an embarrassed laugh.  
  
“Sorry. Um. Thank you,” he says. Yunho smiles and brushes soft brown hair out of Changmin’s eyes.  
  
“Don’t mention it.”  
  
Their eyes meet, Yunho’s warm and friendly, Changmin’s wide and shy, and Changmin feels a blush steal across his face as Yunho’s fingers continue to linger against his cheek. Then Yunho clears his throat and looks away, before taking Changmin’s hand in his and giving it a light squeeze.  
  
“I was just heading to the cafeteria. Want to join me for lunch?” he asks. Changmin nods and lets Yunho lead the way, their hands still clutched together. After that little episode Changmin thinks he might follow Yunho anywhere.  
  
In actuality he ends up spending most of his time following Yunho around the hospital like a lost duckling. Because he’s a relatively stable patient who’s been with them for a while, the nurses sometimes let Yunho help out around the place to occupy his time. Yunho is good at taking care of other people, seems to almost enjoy it, and Changmin asks him if he was studying to become a doctor before he came to Gonjiam.  
  
“A doctor?” Yunho laughs. “No, I don’t have the head for that. I might study nursing once I leave here though. I didn’t really think a lot about university before . . .well . . .” Yunho leaves it at that, and Changmin decides not to pry further. They’re helping make the beds on the third floor for some new arrivals, though mostly it’s Yunho making the beds while Changmin lounges around watching him and trailing him from room to room.  
  
“You graduated high school before you came here right?” Changmin asks.  
  
“Yeah. You?”  
  
Changmin looks down. “Yeah. I graduated two years ago actually. Took a lot of advanced classes.”  
  
Yunho whistles in appreciation. “Wow, you must be really smart,” he grins over his shoulder at Changmin, but Changmin is picking gloomily at his jeans and doesn’t see it.  
  
“Yeah,” he mumbles. “You know what they say about mental cases. We’re better at other things to make up for being socially retarded.”  
  
Sensing that high school is a subject that will only serve to upset Changmin, Yunho swiftly changes the topic.  
  
“So what do you want to do at university?” he asks, bundling up the dirty sheets in his arms and heading for the door. Changmin jumps to his feet and goes after him.  
  
“I . . .don’t know,” he admits. “I suppose I should do something practical, like business or law.”  
  
Yunho pauses in a patch of sunlight, looking thoughtful. “What do you like doing?” he asks.  
  
 _Looking at you,_  Changmin brain immediately supplies. He quickly squashes the thought.  
  
“I like writing?” he ventures. Yunho’s smile is radiant as he turns to him, rays of light catching in his golden hair and dancing around his head.  
  
“I bet you’d be an amazing writer,” he says. Changmin’s mouth goes dry.  
  
 _I’d like to write odes to you that would go down through the centuries,_  he thinks, but he says nothing and follows Yunho quietly to the next room.

 


	5. Chapter 5

“Changmin-ah . . .”  
  
Changmin jerks awake in the middle of the night. Voices whisper through his head. Someone tugs at him and he rolls over, blinking and half-asleep.  
  
Kyuhyun is hovering over him, his face pale and backlit by the moonlight slanting in through the window. Suddenly wide awake, Changmin scrambles upright with a gasp.  
  
“What are you doing in here?” he whispers. Kyuhyun and Ryeowook exchange a glance, then Kyuhyun sinks a hand in Changmin’s hair and yanks him off the bed. Changmin yelps, pain ripping through his scalp as he scrabbles at Kyuhyun’s hand.  
  
“Did you really think you were going to get rid of us that easily?” Kyuhyun snarls, flinging him down on the floor. There’s a long metal rod in his other hand and it drags against the floor as he steps forward. Ryeowook giggles and moves around to block Changmin from behind.  
  
“You tried to hide but we found you,” he sing-songs. Heart pounding, head buzzing, Changmin stumbles to his feet, but before he can make another move Ryeowook grabs his arms and yanks them behind his back. His grip is vice-like and immovable even as Changmin struggles against him.  
  
“No – please –” he pants.  
  
“This is no way to treat your friends Changmin,” Kyuhyun says.  
  
“You’re not – ” Changmin begins, but then Kyuhyun sinks a fist in his gut and he doubles over in pain, coughing and gasping for breath. Ryeowook giggles again.  
  
“Show him what we did to the rod,” he urges. Kyuhyun crouches in front of him and flips the rod around so that the sharp end is inches from Changmin’s eye.  
  
“We built a fire, see, and then we stuck the rod in it for a while until it was nice and hot, and now I’m going to stick it in your chest until you learn how to behave and play nice.”  
  
Changmin groans, frozen with fear as Kyuhyun’s arm swings down towards him in an arch. The rod pierces his chest, tearing through skin and muscle and tissue and the smell of burning flesh fills the room.  
  
Changmin screams. Pain lashes through him and he scrabbles at his chest as the rod sinks in further. Blood covers his hands as he claws and claws but the rod won’t move, it’s stuck inside him, it’s killing him and all he can do is scream and scream with his last dying breaths.  
  
The door bursts open. Nurses pour into the room and he lashes out at them, still screaming and fighting with everything he’s got. They call for guards and hold him down as Changmin sobs and thumps his head against the floor over and over until the drugs kick in and everything goes black.  
  
\- - -  
  
When he comes to he’s back in bed but now he can’t move his arms. His chest stings and aches and he can’t open his left eye properly. Changmin shuffles upright, trying not to teeter over as the straightjacket kills his sense of balance. His arms ache from being in the same position for so long. His everything aches, really.  
  
After a while an orderly comes into the room, gives him water and medicine and helps him into a wheelchair. Changmin doesn’t have the strength to resist any of it – he doesn't even have the strength to talk. As the orderly wheels him down the hallway he catches a glimpse of himself in a mirror and flinches. He’s a mess. The whole left side of his face is bruised and his lip is split. The bandages on his chest itch – Changmin doesn’t even want to know what those wounds look like.  
  
He did this, he realizes. He did this to himself. There was no rod, no Kyuhyun, no Ryeowook, just him screaming and tearing himself apart like an animal. Like some wild thing.  
  
Cold with self-disgust, Changmin lets his head fall forward until his hair obscures his vision. He doesn’t notice that they’ve come to a stop in the common room until footsteps sound from nearby and someone comes to crouch beside him.  
  
“Hey,” Yunho says softly. “I came as soon as I heard.”  
  
Changmin says nothing. He squeezes his eyes shut, trying to will back helpless tears. He doesn’t want Yunho to see him like this.  
  
“Not a talking kind of day, huh,” Yunho says. He reaches out, as though he wants to take Changmin’s hand, then remembers the straightjacket and settles for squeezing his knee instead.  
  
“Can’t you take that thing off him?” Yunho addresses the orderly. The man shakes his head.  
  
“Not yet. Doctor’s orders.”  
  
“It’s over now, he’s not going to hurt anyone. Please just take it off.”  
  
The orderly wavers. He glances at the clock on the wall.  
  
“Well . . .we’re scheduled to take it off at noon . . .”  
  
“There’s only 20 minutes left, it won’t make any difference if you do it now or then,” Yunho says. He meets the man’s eye. “Please.”  
  
The orderly sighs and nods. They help Changmin to his feet and unstrap the straightjacket from him. Changmin lets his arms fall with a sigh once he’s free and then just stands there, unsure of what to do next. Yunho takes his hand and leads him to the couch.  
  
“Better?” he asks quietly.  
  
Changmin gives a tiny nod.  
  
“Do you want me to go?”  
  
Changmin hesitates, then quickly shakes his head. Yunho smiles.  
  
“Okay. Do you want me to read to you?”  
  
A nod. Yunho gets up and fetches a book from the shelf nearby, then urges Changmin to lie down with his head in his lap. Changmin breathes in the scent of his washing powder and musk and feels himself relax for the first time since he woke. Yunho’s free arm curls around his shoulder and Changmin clutches at his hand, lacing their fingers together until his breathing evens out and he’s lulled to sleep by the sound of Yunho’s voice.  
  
\- - -  
  
Four days later he’s sitting in Dr Hwang’s office glaring at the other man with cold hostility. Somewhere deep inside Changmin there’s a fire raging, and he’s just found the perfect outlet for his anger. Dr Hwang regards him calmly, his fingers steepled under his chin.  
  
“Changmin? Would you like to tell me about your day?” he prompts.  
  
“You knew,” Changmin breathes out. “You knew they weren’t real, and you let me go on and on about them without saying a word.”  
  
Dr Hwang sighs. “Yes, I knew they weren’t real. But try to understand – ”  
  
“You lied to me,” Changmin hisses. “I trusted you and you lied to me.”  
  
“I have never lied to you Changmin. I simply let you tell me about your day and did not correct any of your assumptions. We decided to try a different route with your treatment this time, that instead of discouraging your visions we might let them run their natural course. The results were startlingly positive at first – you were happy, adjusting well to being here – ”  
  
Changmin’s never been so furious in his life. “You’re supposed to be helping me,” he snarls. “I’m here to get help, not to be a fucking guinea pig for your experiments!”  
  
He’s on his feet before he realizes what he’s doing, the chair toppling over behind him. Dr Hwang holds up a placating hand.  
  
“Sit down,” he says.  
  
“No! Fuck you and fuck this place!” Changmin yells. “How dare you use me like that? You know it’s dangerous to let them get too close, you know they can make me do things. How fucking stupid do you have to be to disregard that?”  
  
He sweeps his arm across the desk and various papers and objects go flying. A glass globe falls and shatters on the floor. Rage bubbles over and washes through him, lending him strength as he tears through Dr Hwang’s office. He pulls down a bookcase and the doctor ducks out of the way as it crashes down. He presses a button under his desk and the door slams open to admit guards. They grab Changmin and he yells and snaps at them until someone manages to inject him with a sedative.  
  
And then they put him back in the fucking straightjacket.  
  



	6. Chapter 6

What follows are some of the darkest days of Changmin’s life. They pump him full of so many medicines it completely saps his will to do anything but lie in bed and stare at the ceiling for hours and hours. He’s confined to his room for a week, and by the time he’s allowed out he feels like a mere shell of himself, an animated corpse made of bones and air.  
  
The first thing he does is go looking for Yunho, but Yunho is nowhere to be found. By the time he figures out which room he’s in it’s been almost two weeks since Changmin has seen him and he’s starting to get seriously worried. There’s a small window in the door of Yunho’s room, and when he gazes through it he can see a lump under the sheets that can only be the other man, so still it’s hard to tell if he’s even breathing. An arm dangles over the edge of his bed and on it are fresh bandages, wrapped around and around down to his wrist. There’s a lingering bloodstain on one corner of the mattress.  
  
Changmin makes a sound low in throat and scrabbles against the glass, but there’s no reaction from within. Tears blur his vision and spill down his cheeks. Eventually nurse Minyoung finds him and leads him away.  
  
“Not today dear,” she says. “He’s not in a good place today,” she says, and Changmin finally understands why Yunho still needs to be here.  
  
He can’t sleep. Nightmares haunt his dreams. He closes his eyes and sees Kyuhyun and Ryeowook’s faces. He closes his eyes and sees Yunho, a lifeless corpse covered in his own blood. He cries for hours on end every night until there are no more tears left in him, just a deep and hopeless ache.  
  
It’s a thunderstorm that eventually forces Changmin to do something about it. His room is freezing and he can’t stand the noise of the thunder. It sets off whispers in his head. Desperate to run from them, he stumbles from his bed and out of his room. The hospital slumbers, silent and dimly lit. Shadows linger around every corner. There are nurses awake for the night shift at the stations but he avoids those, not wanting to get caught sneaking around. Breath trembling out of him, feet freezing and half scared to death Changmin eventually finds his way to Yunho’s room. He stands outside his door and has no idea what to do; all he knows is that he has to see Yunho now, right now before something jumps out of the shadows and kills him.  
  
“Yunho,” he calls softly. Thunder crashes overhead and Changmin jumps, a whimper lodged low in his throat. “Hyung please. I’m so scared. I’m scared they’re coming to get me. Please let me in. I – ” a sob catches in his throat. “I’m scared for you. I’m scared I might not see you again. I – ”  
  
The door opens. Yunho stands there, sleep-rumpled and barely awake. Changmin makes a sound and flings himself at him and Yunho stumbles back.  
  
“Why wouldn’t you see me again?” he mumbles, voice raspy with sleep. Changmin pulls back and stares at him.  
  
“It’s been two weeks hyung.”  _Didn’t you miss me?_  
  
“Oh yeah . . .” Yunho looks away. “It’s all kind of a blur . . .”  
  
Changmin’s expression softens. He closes the door behind them and leads Yunho to his bed and sits him down on it.  
  
“You – are you okay?” Yunho asks, running his hands over Changmin’s arms and looking a little more awake.  
  
“I’m fine,” Changmin says softly. “Don’t scare me like that again.”  
  
“I’m sorry Changminnie. I didn’t mean to scare you. I missed you so much . . .”  
  
Changmin smiles. “I missed you too.” He glances around. Yunho’s bed is small, but if they lie close together they should be able to fit. “Can I – can I stay here tonight? I don’t want to go back to my room.”  
  
Yunho rubs his eyes. “Yeah, of course. Here – ” he gropes under his bed, pulls out an extra blanket and spreads it over Changmin. They lie down and twist around to get comfortable. The bedsprings squeak in protest. Changmin ends up on his side with Yunho behind him, his nose buried in the nape of Changmin’s neck. Yunho sighs contentedly and flings an arm over his waist. Changmin glances down and places hesitant fingers over his bandages.  
  
“Yunho . . .” he whispers. He wants to say something, maybe ask why or offer some sort of comfort, but nothing comes out. Yunho’s arm tightens around him.  
  
“Please don’t ask why,” he whispers. Changmin nods and settles for an easier question.  
  
“How?”  
  
Yunho hesitates. “My key to the doctors offices.”  
  
Changmin remembers the night they snuck in there to check the patient files. “You stole that key didn’t you,” he whispers. Yunho gives an infinitesimal nod behind his back. Changmin thinks he probably should have realized sooner – there was no way a patient with Yunho’s condition would have been allowed possession of a sharp object like that. He thinks he even understands why Yunho lied to him about it, but that doesn’t make it right.  
  
“Don’t lie to me again,” Changmin says. He hears Yunho take a shuddering breath and turns to face him.  
  
“I’m sorry,” Yunho whispers. He looks miserable and guilty, and Changmin can’t hold it against him. He curls his arms around Yunho’s neck and runs his fingers through his hair as Yunho buries his face in his shoulder and fights tears.  
  
“It’s okay,” Changmin whispers. “It’s okay hyung.”  
  
He sleeps soundly through the night for the first time in weeks.  
  
\- - -  
  
Something changes after that first night, something small and subtle and infinitely important. Soon Changmin finds himself sneaking into Yunho’s room every other night to sleep snuggled close to him, uncaring that the nurses will tell them off in the morning, uncaring of how strange it may look or how uncomfortable the small bed sometimes gets with their long legs.  
  
Some nights he can’t sleep, and he stays awake memorizing each line and contour of Yunho’s face. Some nights neither of them can sleep, and they stay awake swapping secrets. It’s easier to confess uncomfortable truths into the darkness, away from the harsh, judgmental light of day.  
  
“Why did your family have you admitted?” Changmin asks late one night. They’re lying on their sides facing each other, and Yunho has one arm tucked under his head and the other flung casually over Changmin waist. He sighs at the question and looks down.  
  
“I suppose they just wanted what was best for me. But I think they also wanted what was best for them, and after the third time they found me passed out in a pool of blood my mother couldn’t take it anymore.”  
  
“They don’t visit very often,” Changmin murmurs, tracing the shape of a scar on the arm around his waist.  
  
“They used to, at first. But it’s been a while . . .people move on . . .”  
  
“But you’re still here,” Changmin whispers.  
  
“Yeah,” Yunho looks up. There’s no self-pity in his gaze, just the knowledge of the cold, hard truth. “I’m still here.”  
  
Changmin sighs and rolls onto his back, dislodging Yunho’s arm from around him.  
  
“You wanna know how I ended up in here?” he says. Yunho’s fingers slide up his bicep, exploring bare skin with feather-light touches.  
  
“Sure.”  
  
“I tried to kill my uncle.”  
  
Yunho’s hand stills against him. Changmin can’t look at him; he doesn’t want to see what expression is on his face.  
  
“Why?” Yunho asks at last.  
  
“The voices told me to do it. I thought if I did what they said they’d leave me alone. I just wanted them to leave me alone.”  
  
“And? Did you succeed?”  
  
“What?” Changmin turns his head and stares at Yunho.  
  
“Your uncle. Is he dead?”  _Are you a murderer?_  Changmin hears the unspoken question in Yunho’s voice and swallows around the lump in his throat.  
  
“I don’t know,” he whispers.  
  
“How can you not know?”  
  
“I never asked. Whenever my parents visit . . .I never ask them if he made it. I don’t know. I don’t want to know.”  
  
Spoken out loud like that, it sounds incredibly selfish and weak. But fear and self-loathing are Changmin’s constant enemies, and he doesn’t think he’d be able to live with himself if he found out he was a murderer after all. He dares to glance at Yunho, but there’s no judgement in his gaze. Instead he appears thoughtful, as though he’s trying to figure out something important.  
  
“Say he didn’t make it. When you leave here, would they put you in jail?”  
  
Changmin’s heart is thumping somewhere in his throat. “No. Well, they might for the duration of a trial, but I’d get off on an insanity plea.”  
  
“Okay. So there’s nothing to lose by knowing.”  
  
Changmin shudders. “I can’t – ”  
  
“You need to know. This haunts you, I can tell.” Changmin starts to protest, but Yunho takes his face in his hands and forces him to meet his gaze. “Listen to me. You’ve got enough demons as it is, you don’t need the ghost of your uncle following you around too, especially if he’s not even dead. Just ask them.”  
  
Changmin closes his eyes. A single tear escapes and slides down his cheek and is caught by Yunho’s thumb. He leans closer, breath ghosting over Changmin’s face.  
  
“Are you afraid?” Yunho asks quietly. “Are you afraid I’d leave you if I found out you were a murderer?”  
  
Changmin makes a small sound and nods, not trusting himself to speak. There’s a pause, then Yunho’s arms wrap around him and pull him impossibly close. Changmin buries his face in his chest and breathes in his scent, so full of pain and hope it’s terrifying.  
  
“I’m not going to leave you,” Yunho whispers into his hair. “It’ll take more than a few ghosts to scare me away.”  
  
Dry sobs shake Changmin apart. He clutches at Yunho and whispers words into his neck that sound like thank you, but which may have been something else.  
  


 


	7. Chapter 7

Once a week the patients are allowed visitors, though few of them get any. Changmin’s mother comes every week, bringing news of home and forced, stilted conversation with her. A gulf of unspoken words and bitter memories separates them and Changmin doesn’t have the energy to bridge it. But she makes the effort to visit him, so he spends the obligatory hour sitting with her and talking about inconsequential things like the weather and what his sisters are doing lately. Sometimes his father comes with her and they sit in stony silence and Changmin tries to think of polite things to say while the painful knowledge that for the longest time his father was the one who refused to believe him when he said he saw things that weren’t there eats at him from the inside.

This week is no different than the ones before, only this time Changmin spends the whole hour working himself up to a question that in the end he almost misses the chance to ask. His mother sighs at the end of their hour and rises to her feet, her hand dropping off his shoulder. Changmin steels himself and looks up.

“Mum, wait,” he calls. She pauses and glances around at him. Changmin swallows, once, twice, then grits his teeth and looks down again.

“Uncle Kyung,” he says. “Is he alive? D-did he make it?”

His mother’s breath rushes out of her. She sinks into a nearby chair.

“Yes,” she says after a while. “Yes, he’s alive. He was discharged from hospital last month.”

Blood roars through Changmin’s ears. He fixes his eyes on the carpet, fingers clenching and unclenching on his knees.

“Good. That’s good. I-I’m really glad he’s okay. Tell him I’m sorry. About everything. I know that sounds really useless now, but – ”

His mother covers his hand with one of hers.

“It’s not useless. It’ll mean a lot to him. It’ll means a lot to everyone just to know that you care,” she says softly.

Changmin stares at her. “O-of course I care,” he stutters. She smiles and presses a kiss to his forehead before she leaves.

Changmin sits there for a while, trying to absorb what just happened. After a few minutes he gets up, flings the door open and runs through the hallway, down a flight of stairs and out onto the hospital grounds. He finds Yunho under his favorite tree and barrels into his arms, sending them both tumbling onto the grass. Changmin laughs as Yunho protests the rough treatment and sits up.

“He’s alive,” he says. “My uncle’s alive.”

Yunho stops complaining and brushing leaves off himself and stares at him.

“You – oh god Changmin, I’m so happy for you, thank god – ” Yunho hugs him and they fall back against the grass together and Changmin’s laughter rings out across the garden. He feels like a great weight has lifted off his chest, a weight that he hadn’t even known was there and it’s all thanks to Yunho.

Yunho pulls back and grins down at him, Changmin’s laughter clearly proving contagious.

“See, I told you. I told you there was nothing to worry abou – ”

Changmin leans up and kisses him, cutting him off mid-sentence.

For a second Yunho freezes against him, surprised. Then he groans low in his throat and kisses back. He draws Changmin up with both hands on his back and Changmin loops his arms around his neck and kisses him, tender and fierce and with joy singing through his veins. Yunho’s mouth yields hot and soft beneath his and Changmin dips his tongue inside, tasting and licking and claiming. Heat shudders through him, heat and the heady knowledge that Yunho clearly wants this just as much as he does.

He rolls them and presses Yunho beneath him and kisses him until they’re both dizzy and gasping for breath.

“Oh,” Yunho gasps. “Oh Changmin, I’ve wanted this for so long, I’ve wanted you –”

“Yes,” Changmin hisses. “Yes,” he repeats, and seals their lips together.

\- - -

Eventually they come to their senses long enough to realize that a) they’re making out in broad daylight where anyone could see and b) they really shouldn’t be making out in broad daylight where anyone could see. They draw apart, dazed and elated, and Changmin moves back to allow Yunho to sit up. He looks so deliciously rumpled, leaves in his hair and lips glistening, that Changmin has to exercise a lot of self-control not to jump him again. Yunho touches his swollen lower lip with wonder.

“Wow,” he breathes. “I don’t think I’ve ever been kissed like that before.”

Changmin smirks and licks his lips. “You have no idea how long I’ve been waiting to do that.”

“Why, exactly, were you waiting?” Yunho asks. Changmin looks down.

“I didn’t want it to happen just because we were lonely or scared or trying to block everything else out. That would have cheapened it. I wanted to kiss you when I wanted to kiss you because I wanted to kiss you, and for no other reason than that.”

Yunho smiles. “Shim Changmin, you romantic sap,” he says. He gets to his feet and reaches a hand out. Changmin takes it but stumbles on his way up and Yunho catches him against his chest with a laugh.

“You’ve got – here – ” They pick leaves out of each other’s hair and straighten their clothes. Changmin lingers over the last leaf, unwilling to move away and leave the comfort of Yunho’s arms.

“Wanna go back in?” Yunho asks, nuzzling against his jaw.

“No. I want to stay out here with you forever,” Changmin says. Yunho laughs and trails kisses over his nose and cheeks.

“Me too.”

But it’s lunchtime and they’re hungry and technically they’re not even supposed to be out on the grounds right now, so they force themselves apart and head back into the hospital, though Changmin keeps a hold of Yunho’s hand. He’s allowed, he thinks, this one liberty.

Over the next few weeks he finds himself taking even more liberties. The nurses, tired of finding them in each other’s beds every morning, eventually give in and assign them to a shared room. Changmin couldn’t be happier to leave his old ghost-filled room behind. Their new room contains two single beds (which they immediately push together to make one big bed), a bedside table, a dresser, a desk and a chair. It’s a lot more comfortable than what he had before, and Changmin thinks he may have finally been downgraded from a ‘likely to kill us all’ patient to a mere ‘may possibly kill us all’.

But what starts off as a lingering high for them both is inevitably followed by an even deeper crash. Some days Yunho can’t get out of bed and lies deathly still under the covers for hours, silent tears soaking his pillow. Changmin sits with him and reads to him or brings the radio from the nurses station and plays music and tries to remind him of all the things worth living for. Some days Changmin wakes paralyzed by fear, unable to move and with phantom voices filling his head, and Yunho lies with him and kisses life back into his limbs. They run patterns of sickness around each other, diseases merging and parting until Changmin thinks he’s the one with depression and Yunho the schizophrenic. Some days neither of them has the energy to pull the other back from the brink, and they lie curled up on opposite sides of the bed and silence stretches out between them cold and deafening.

But interspersed between the bad days are the shining beacon of good days, and those make it all worth it. Good days like when Yunho wakes him with butterfly kisses and Changmin laughs and curls into his arms. Good days like the time Minyoung catches them kissing in a corner of the hospital library and they spring apart with embarrassed laughs, but she merely smiles and asks if they really thought she didn’t already know. Good days like when they sneak out onto the grounds and spend hours curled up on the grass together and the rest of the world melts away until there’s only them and that one perfect, infinite moment.

“Do you still see them?” Yunho asks him one day when they’re lying on the common room couch. The room is empty of anyone else and Changmin is sprawled across Yunho, listening to the steady thump of his heartbeat. He knows who Yunho means – he raises his head and familiar faces flicker at the corner of his vision. Changmin quickly looks away.

“Yeah,” he says. Yunho sits up and settles Changmin in his lap with his knees on either side of his waist.

“You tell them,” he says quietly. “That if they ever come near you again, I’ll kill them.”

Changmin laughs breathlessly. “How exactly are you planning to kill something that only exists in my head?” he asks. Yunho smiles against his throat.

“I’ll find a way. I’ve got moves, y’know,” he says, lips tickling Changmin’s neck as he speaks. Changmin giggles and tries to squirm away.

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah,” Yunho laughs and tickles Changmin until he falls back against the couch with a shriek.

 

  



	8. Chapter 8

Changmin soon realizes that while their relationship is everything he could possibly want, he needs something more from Yunho. Yunho’s frailty on his bad days is in stark contrast to his strength on his good ones, and Changmin desperately wants to bring those two halves together and restore him to a normal medium. He doesn’t need Yunho to be strong all the time, but he does need him to be a functioning human being on most days. There’s no cure for what Changmin’s got, but he knows there’s still hope for Yunho.  
  
What he needs, Changmin thinks, is to make Yunho feel as precious and important to himself as he is to Changmin. And the only way to do that is to make him feel as loved and taken care of as Changmin feels in his arms.  
  
It’s just luck, really, that the only way Changmin can think of accomplishing this is something he’s been working himself up to ask Yunho for a while now.  
  
“Yunho?” he asks him one afternoon. “Will you sleep with me?”  
  
He’s sitting at their desk while Yunho lounges in bed reading something. He glances up and gives a confused little laugh.  
  
“What? I sleep with you every night.”  
  
“No, I mean. Will you  _sleep_  sleep with me.”  
  
Yunho blinks. “Oh,” realization is slow to dawn. “ _Oh._ ” He puts his book aside and sits up.  
  
“You don’t have to say yes,” Changmin adds quickly when it’s clear Yunho is hesitating. Yunho shakes his head.  
  
“No it’s not that. I mean yes, of course I’ll sleep with you. It’s just that – I’ve never – ”  
  
Changmin frowns and moves to sit beside him on the bed. “You’re not a virgin are you?”  
  
“What? Oh god no,” Yunho laughs. “I’ve just – never done it with a guy before. Like all the way. It’s a bit . . .intimidating.”  
  
Changmin smiles and leans closer. “Are you afraid of getting fucked?” he asks softly. Yunho flushes and leans back.  
  
“Well I – ”  
  
“I’m not going to fuck you,” Changmin breathes in his ear. “I’m going to make love to you. And it’s going to be the most amazing night of your life.” His hand drops down to run over the crotch of Yunho’s jeans. “I want to make you feel good. Please hyung, please let me make you feel good.”  
  
Yunho groans, his head falling back as Changmin rubs him through his pants. The musk of his arousal fills the air, and Changmin stops stroking him and lifts his fingers to his nose, inhaling Yunho’s scent. His tongue flicks out to taste and Yunho stares at him, wide-eyed and panting. Changmin reaches over and slips two fingers into his mouth, Yunho’s moan vibrating against the digits as he sucks automatically. He looks flushed and needy when Changmin pulls them away and replaces them with his lips and kisses Yunho into a daze.  
  
“Tonight,” he breathes against his mouth, and Yunho nods frantically.  
  
“Okay.”  
  
\- - -  
  
Changmin spends the rest of the day foraging together the things they’ll need. Lube is relatively easy to get a hold of – there are various bottles of it in the medicine cabinets of the infirmary. Condoms present a more difficult challenge – where the hell is he supposed to get those? He supposes they could go without; he’s clean and he knows Yunho is too, but he wants their first time to be as safe and comfortable an experience for Yunho as possible.  
  
Eventually Changmin breaks down and sneaks into the nurses station to go through their bags. He feels bad for rummaging through their private things, but his tenacity pays off – inside one large red handbag he finds a five-string of unopened condom packets.  
  
“Naughty nurse Roberts,” Changmin whispers, pocketing them with a grin.  
  
He returns to their room victorious and stands in the doorway with a smirk on his face. Yunho is reading on his stomach in bed, his chin propped up on his hands. It makes his cheeks squish up towards his eyes in the most adorable way.  
  
“Hi cutie. You come here often?” Changmin purrs. Yunho looks up at him and laughs.  
  
“I think we’re far past the stage where you need to hit on me in order to get me into bed,” he says.  
  
“I know, I just wanted to do it anyway,” Changmin grins. He drops the lube and condoms on the bedside table and pounces on Yunho, laughing as Yunho yelps and tries to buck him off. They roll, the sheets getting tangled around them and wrapping them in a cocoon of white. They come to a stop with Changmin on top, breathless and grinning.  
  
“Got you,” he breathes, and kisses Yunho. They melt together, lips moving against each other in what has become a deliciously familiar dance. Yunho makes soft little sounds into his mouth that make Changmin’s head spin. He rocks down, grinding his crotch against Yunho’s and they both moan at the friction.  
  
“Lights out!” an orderly calls from outside, and one by one the hospital rooms grow dark. The light in their room goes out and moonlight floods in from the window. It’s a full moon, and in its light Yunho’s skin seems to glow alabaster. He smiles up at Changmin, his body open and soft and yielding.  
  
“Hi,” he whispers.  
  
“Hi,” Changmin breathes. His hands slide down Yunho’s torso as they go back to kissing, fingers fumbling at the buttons of his shirt. He manages to get it open in record time and Yunho rises up to slide it off, all without breaking their kiss. Changmin flings the shirt aside and runs his nails down Yunho’s chest, kneading and stroking soft flesh. He pushes Yunho back down and trails his lips over his neck, shoulders, collarbones until he gets to the soft little mounds of Yunho’s pectorals. Changmin cups them in his hands and squeezes, stroking and pinching his nipples at the same time. Yunho makes a fantastic, embarrassed little noise and arches up, panting and helpless under Changmin’s ministrations.  
  
“Changmin – you know I don’t like – ” he starts.  
  
“Shh,” Changmin squeezes harder and Yunho cuts himself off with a moan. “You might not like them but you like how this feels, so it doesn’t matter right?”  
  
He lowers his head and takes a nipple between his teeth, tugging and licking until Yunho is all hot and bothered beneath him.  
  
“Besides,” Changmin breathes. “I love your cute little tits. I’ve been dreaming of burying my face in them.”  
  
Yunho whimpers, equal parts embarrassed and turned on. Changmin moves on to his other nipple, sucking it as his fingers scratch and squeeze Yunho’s chest. Once he’s satisfied with the stiff, abused peaks Changmin slides lower. He leaves painful little bites all along Yunho’s stomach and then licks at his hipbones, all while Yunho shudders and tries to stifle his moans. The walls are paper thin and if anyone hears them there could be trouble. Changmin considers gagging Yunho, but then decides he likes hearing his desperate attempts to keep quiet more.  
  
Changmin presses the heel of his palm against Yunho’s crotch and Yunho gives a choked little cry.  
  
“Changmin please – don’t tease – ” he whispers frantically. Changmin grins and pops the button of his jeans, working them down Yunho’s thighs and tossing them aside. Then he hooks his fingers in Yunho’s underwear. The material catches on the head of his cock and Yunho bucks up, but Changmin pushes him back down as he pulls it off and gazes at the glorious, mouth-watering sight below him.  
  
“Wow,” Changmin whispers. He’d thought Yunho was attractive since the first time he laid eyes on him, but seeing him spread out like this under the moonlight, naked and vulnerable, is surpassing his wildest fantasies.  
  
“What?” Yunho says.  
  
 _He doesn’t know,_  Changmin realizes.  _He really has no idea how fucking perfect he is._  
  
“You’re gorgeous,” he whispers. Yunho stares at him, a blush slowly creeping its way up his cheeks. Changmin’s eyes rove over him hungrily. He wants to lick every inch of Yunho, starting with the generous inches between his legs. Changmin’s eyes drop lower.  
  
“Wow. You’re big,” he murmurs. Now Yunho looks smug.  
  
“All the better to – “ he starts, but Changmin chooses that moment to sink his mouth down on his cock and Yunho chokes on the rest of his sentence. He clenches his fingers in the sheets as Changmin starts to suck, head bobbing up and down over Yunho’s length. He flattens his tongue and licks up the vein on the underside and wet, slurping sounds fill the room. Yunho groans.  
  
“Fuck – ” he gasps.  
  
“Yes, I agree,” Changmin says. Yunho laughs. Changmin tugs his own shirt off and Yunho reaches up to help divest him of his clothes. Once naked he stretches out over Yunho, skin against skin, and swallows his gasps with his mouth. He’s so hard it’s almost painful, and Yunho, hot and squirming beneath him, is doing nothing to help. He sits up and leans back, ass pushing against Yunho’s erection, and Yunho arches up eagerly. Changmin laughs softly.  
  
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” he teases.  
  
“Yes,” Yunho gasps. “Oh god yes – ”  
  
“No,” Changmin fumbles on the bedside table and pops the cap of the lube. “It’s my turn, and right now I want to be inside your sweet little ass.”  
  
He coats his hand, hitches Yunho’s leg onto his shoulder and lowers his fingers to his clenching hole. Yunho’s so tight that just one finger is a stretch. Changmin grunts and pours more lube on, then sinks two fingers in and scissors them. Yunho writhes and whimpers, his skin on fire. Changmin curls his fingers and brushes against that bundle of nerves, and Yunho suddenly arches up with a hoarse cry. Changmin grins.  
  
“Oh yeah,” he gasps, and does it again. Yunho jerks beneath him, a slave to the arousal shuddering through him.  
  
“Oh fuck – oh god Changmin get inside me, get inside me right now,” he moans. Changmin doesn’t need telling twice. He grabs the condoms and rips a packet open, rolling it on and slicking himself up before leaning over Yunho and starting to push in. He bites down on Yunho’s shoulder as he sheathes himself, the tight heat gripping him almost sending him over the edge instantly.  
  
“ _Move_ ,” Yunho groans. Changmin pulls out and slams back in, pushing them both up the bed and drawing desperate mewls from Yunho. He starts a hard, fast pace, too turned on from all the foreplay to draw this out any longer. He pauses to change the angle of his hips and grins when Yunho yelps as he pounds against that spot inside him. Sweat runs down their bodies, Yunho reduced to an incoherent mess within minutes, only capable of making joyous little sounds as Changmin fucks him into oblivion. Changmin laughs, fierce and breathless, and loses himself in the rhythm and heat of their bodies.  
  
Yunho comes first, without being touched. His back arches in a perfect bow and he spills between them, lips parted in a silent scream. His clenching drives Changmin over the edge and he follows moments later to brilliant, shattering completion, face and teeth buried in Yunho’s neck.  
  
It takes them a few minutes to come back down to earth. Changmin slips out of Yunho with a groan and sits up. He ties the condom off and throws it in the general direction of the wastepaper basket before flopping back down. Beside him, Yunho appears to be in a daze, boneless and shaken apart.  
  
“Well,” Changmin begins. “That was – ”  
  
“Perfect,” Yunho says. “It was perfect.”  
  
“I think the entire hospital probably heard us.”  
  
Yunho groans. “I tried so hard,” he pouts.  
  
Changmin laughs and rolls to his knees. He gazes down at Yunho, one hand rubbing over his broad, sweat-slicked chest, and Yunho gazes back at him with hooded eyes.  
  
“Nobody’s going to be able to look us in the eye tomorrow without imagining me doing you,” Changmin says. Yunho groans and flings an arm over his eyes. The moonlight catches on his scars, and Changmin feels his breath hitch. Slowly, he reaches out and takes Yunho’s hand, drawing his arm towards himself.  
  
They stare at each other for a long moment before Changmin lowers his head and does what he’s been wanting to do since the first time Yunho showed him his scars. He trails his lips over the shape of each line, then flicks the tip of his tongue out and traces them with that. Yunho shudders and turns his face away.  
  
“Don’t,” he whispers. “They’re ugly.”  
  
“They’re beautiful,” Changmin breathes. “They’re part of you, and that makes them beautiful.”  
  
Changmin traces each mottled line with exquisite care, then takes Yunho’s other arm and does the same with that. Emotion tightens his chest, and when he looks down he sees that Yunho is crying silently into his pillow. Changmin presses a final kiss against his wrist, then leans down and kisses his tears away.  
  
“I know it’s really cliché to say this right after sex,” he whispers. “But you need to know that I love you. I love you with every fiber of my being. I’d do anything to make you happy Yunho. The real kind of happy, not the fake happy you use to hide your sadness.”  
  
Yunho curls his arms around him and pulls Changmin closer. “You do make me happy,” he says into his hair. “You make me happier than I ever thought it was possible for me to be.”  
  
He tilts Changmin’s face up and smiles at him.  
  
“Loving you makes me happy.”

 


	9. Chapter 9

 

Waking up deliciously sore and content every morning becomes routine. That first night, after Yunho tells him he loves him, Changmin lets him bend him over and fuck him into the mattress until neither of them can move anymore. Their hunger for each other seems insatiable. Changmin’s never had so much sex in his life – he’d had a boyfriend in high school, some closeted asshole who’d only wanted him for his body, and even though their relationship had been purely physical it had never been like it is with Yunho, nor half as satisfying. It becomes impossible to hide their relationship any longer – not that they’d been doing a very good job of that to begin with. A few of the nurses eye them with disapproval, one or two with outright disdain, but Minyoung pulls rank on them and tells them all to shut up and do their jobs. Changmin is sure that without her things would probably be a lot worse, but even then he can’t bring himself to care what anyone else thinks.  
  
Months pass, and they welcome the New Year together. Yunho turns 21, and a few days after him Changmin turns 19, and he knows things are getting serious when they start making plans to live together after they leave Gonjiam. For his birthday present Yunho blindfolds and ties Changmin up and drips hot wax all over his skin, a fantasy Changmin had previously confessed to him in a moment of passion. He lets the wax cool before scratching it off and Changmin comes so hard he blacks out for a few seconds, after which Yunho fucks him slow and deep into the night. For Yunho’s birthday Changmin packs them a picnic and takes him up to the roof at midnight, and afterwards they make love under the stars and moonlight.  
  
“What’s the first thing you’re going to do when we get out of here?” Yunho asks him one night. They’re lying tangled together in bed, sweaty and satisfied, hands stroking over bare skin in lazy exploration. Changmin hums thoughtfully and traces the fresh scratches he’s just left on Yunho’s back.  
  
“I’m . . .going to eat an entire chocolate cake,” he says. Yunho giggles against his shoulder and Changmin grins. The strictly scheduled meal times at the hospital were possibly the hardest thing about being away from home for Changmin, who loved food way too much to only have it three times a day. He bites Yunho’s shoulder playfully and Yunho squirms against him, mewling in protest until Changmin licks at the spot soothingly.  
  
“What about you?” he asks when they’ve settled down again. Yunho’s breath puffs out against his neck. He’s silent for a few minutes, and Changmin wonders if he’s fallen asleep. At last Yunho sighs and shifts against him, his hair tickling Changmin’s cheek.  
  
“I’m going to go home,” Yunho says softly. “And hug my mother, and tell her I’m sorry for all the pain I’ve caused her.”  
  
Changmin wriggles lower in bed until he’s face-to-face with Yunho. He runs his hand through soft golden locks and grimaces.  
  
“What do you have to be sorry about?” Changmin murmurs. “She’s the ones who gave up on you.”  
  
Yunho smiles at him. “I can’t blame her for that when I was the one who drove her away.”  
  
Changmin sighs. He marvels sometimes at Yunho’s capacity for forgiveness, and yet his inability to turn that forgiveness to introspection. Yunho has nothing but love and mercy in his heart for the family that by all appearances has forgotten him but none for himself.  
  
“You shouldn’t blame yourself for what happened,” he whispers.  
  
Yunho looks away. “It’s hard. It’s hard not to when I remember her pain.”  
  
“Well I forgive you,” Changmin says. “I forgive you on your behalf.”  
  
That makes Yunho smile. He rolls them and presses Changmin under him and nuzzles against his cheek, pressing soft little kisses at the corner of his mouth. Changmin’s legs rise automatically and wrap around him, and when Yunho carefully pushes back into him he gasps and arches up and tightens. Yunho’s hips undulate in a slow rhythm and Changmin throws his head back and moves with him. Soft kisses trail up the column of his throat and they pick up their pace a little before Yunho rises up on his knees suddenly and draws Changmin onto his lap.  
  
“Ride me baby,” he breathes, and Changmin groans and sinks down on him, frantic and breathless.  
  
It’s a perfect time, compounded by fewer and fewer relapses by both of them. Changmin dares to believe that all their hopeful plans might actually become a reality, and it’s this that prompts him to tell them to his mother the next time she visits.  
  
“I’m not coming home when I get out of here,” he says. She stares at him, uncomprehending.  
  
“What? Why not?”  
  
Changmin sighs and rises to open the door, beyond which Yunho is waiting patiently. He takes his hand and leads him into the room and they stand before his mother, equal parts determined and nervous.  
  
“Mum, this is Yunho. We’re going to university together after we leave here. I’m going to live with him.”  
  
His mother’s eyebrows fly up so high they’re in danger of disappearing in her hair. Yunho clears his throat and steps forward.  
  
“It’s nice to meet you Mrs Shim,” he says. She shakes his hand silently, apparently at a loss for words.  
  
“Can you say something?” Changmin says edgily when the silence has gone on for too long. His mother seems to shake herself out of a daze.  
  
“I’m sorry, this is just so sudden. When – how – ”  
  
“We met in here. We’ve been together for almost a year,” Changmin says through gritted teeth.  
  
“How can you be gay?” his mother wails. Changmin’s eye twitches and his hand tightens in Yunho’s hold.  
  
“Seriously? I’m in a hospital for the mentally deranged and all you can worry about is the fact that I’m gay?”  
  
“But since when – ”  
  
“I had a boyfriend in high school. You’d know this if you and dad had paid even a smidgen of attention to me instead of trying to pretend everything was fine.”  
  
“Don’t you dare blame your father for this,” his mother flares up. Changmin opens his mouth to snarl something back at her but Yunho takes hold of his arm and squeezes.  
  
“It’s okay,” Yunho whispers. “Calm down. She’s your mother – trust me this is hurting her more than it’s hurting you.”  
  
Changmin takes a deep breath and presses his forehead against Yunho’s. He drops down into a chair across from his mother and Yunho sits beside him, still murmuring soothingly in his ear. Mrs Shim watches them with an odd expression on her face before it clears and she coughs to get their attention.  
  
“I’m sorry, my reaction was – Changmin honey, you know I’ll love you no matter what, right?” she says. Changmin gives a stiff nod. His mother swallows before continuing. “That’s not what worries me. Yunho dear, what did you say you were in here for?”  
  
There’s a tense silence. Yunho opens his mouth, but nothing comes out. Changmin squeezes his hand and takes over.  
  
“Yunho has clinical depression Mum. He’s in here because he tried to kill himself. Multiple times.”  
  
Mrs Shim’s expression softens into pity. “I’m sorry to hear that. But you have to understand how unfeasible your plan is. You need someone to take care of you Changmin. How can Yunho be that person if he can’t even take care of himself?”  
  
Changmin exchanges a glance with Yunho. They hadn’t expected his mother to raise such a valid point.  
  
“Mrs Shim, Changmin is the most important person in the world to me,” Yunho says. “Taking care of him would be an honor. And we already share a room here, it’s not like I don’t know what to expect – ”  
  
“In a hospital, where all your needs and treatments are seen to by other people,” Mrs Shim says gently. “I’m sorry boys, but this plan sounds impossible.”  
  
Changmin scowls at her. “Well too bad, because it’s happening anyway,” he says stubbornly.  
  
But her words weigh heavily on them both. The truth is that just because they might be deemed stable enough to leave Gonjiam one day it wouldn’t mean that they were cured. Relapses amongst released patients were frequent and expected. The walls of the hospital seem to close in around them like a tomb. Changmin finds himself angry at Yunho for not getting better, for not being the strong one, even after all he’s tried to do for him.  
  
“What do you talk about in your therapy sessions?” he asks Yunho one day when they’re in the common room. Ever since his altercation with Dr Hwang they’d both been transferred to a new therapist, Changmin because he trashed the man’s office and Yunho because he refused to see him after what he’d done to Changmin. Their new therapist was a tough old woman who pulled no punches, which sort of made her the best therapist ever. Yunho shrugs.  
  
“Bullshit about how I’m so positive and hopeful now. I don’t think she’s buying it,” he says. Changmin feels a twinge of annoyance.  
  
“Why don’t you just tell her the truth?”  
  
Yunho snorts. “Why, because therapy is such a big help?”  
  
“It does help. It’s helping me. Dr Kim is really good, she taught me how to block out the visions – ”  
  
“Well whoop-de-do for you,” Yunho mutters.  
  
Changmin glares at him. “What the hell is your problem? You’re sick Yunho! When are you going to start dealing with that?”  
  
“Oh yeah?” Yunho snarls. “Well you’re crazy. Try dealing with that first before you go worrying about other people’s problems.”  
  
Changmin stares at him, cold with hurt. It’s as though Yunho had reached out and struck him. He wishes Yunho had hit him instead.  
  
He gets up and leaves.  
  
\- - -  
  
Yunho finds him in their room a few hours later, curled up in his corner of the bed with his arms around his knees, staring unseeingly at the wall. He sits down beside him and sighs.  
  
“I’m sorry.”  
  
Silence. Changmin doesn’t look away from his blank study of the wall.  
  
“You know who used to call me crazy?” he says after a few minutes. “The kids I went to school with. They’d throw things at me and then tell me I imagined it, and I believed them because the alternative was admitting that I really did see things that weren’t there.”  
  
Yunho’s breath hitches. He presses his cheek against Changmin’s knee and closes his eyes.  
  
“I’m sorry,” he whispers.  
  
Changmin sighs. It’s stupid that he’s so in love with Yunho he can’t even stay mad at him. He drops a hand to Yunho’s head and cards his fingers through his hair.  
  
“I just want to help you Yunho. I am terrified of waking up one day to find your corpse beside me. It keeps me up at night.”  
  
Yunho raises his head to look at him. “See, this is what scares me.”  
  
“What?”  
  
“When you talk like this. Like this is it. Forever. Like you’re planning on waking up next to me every day for the rest of your life.”  
  
Changmin stares at him. It feels like the bottom has suddenly dropped out of his stomach. “Aren't you?” he whispers.  
  
Yunho cups his face in his hands, eyes searching his gaze. “I am crazy about you Changmin. But let’s be honest for a second – neither of us is in a position to be making grand promises to anyone else. Your mother’s right, how can we take care of each other when we can’t even take care of ourselves?”  
  
“That’s exactly why we need each other,” Changmin says. “I’m only sane when I’m with you, can’t you see that?”  
  
But Yunho just looks away and doesn’t say a word.  
  



	10. Chapter 10

 

Melancholy sets in, the kind that saps all strength. Changmin can’t figure out what Yunho wants – he thinks that maybe even Yunho doesn’t know what he wants. At night they sleep on opposite sides of the bed, curled away from each other, and Changmin wonders how sharing a room with another person can feel so lonely.  
  
He thinks sometimes that Yunho is afraid of leaving Gonjiam, afraid of facing the real world after all this time. Changmin wonders why he doesn’t feel the same, then realizes the difference is that he has people out there who he wants to see, family and friends who he misses. Everyone who cares for Yunho is in here – his ghosts aren’t in ward 15, they’re out there with the family that abandoned him, the life he barely remembers.  
  
Of the two of them, Changmin realizes, the one who’s truly paralyzed by fear is Yunho. And he’s been paralyzed for so long that he’s forgotten what it feels like to live without fear; it’s become his safety blanket, the one constant in his life with any meaning. And try as he might, Changmin has yet to replace that fear with his love.  
  
Slowly, carefully, they learn how to be with each other again, though something is different this time. The fire and passion that had characterized their relationship before, though not gone, is tempered by something far more valuable – stability. It’s enough to simply sleep in each other’s arms again without subtext or expectation. Changmin feels like they’ve come full circle – in the end all he had truly needed was to lie safe in Yunho’s arms.  
  
But the problem with circles is that whence came the beginning, so comes the end.  
  
Every three months their doctors conduct patient evaluations and write discharge recommendations for stabilized patients. This quarter’s evaluations are the ones they’ve been working towards, and Changmin feels confident that they’ll get the discharge form. He hasn’t had an episode in ages, and it’s been months since Yunho so much as scratched himself. Dr Kim even tells him that she’s pleased with his progress, which coming from her is high praise.  
  
They wait in the common room for the nurses to bring the results around. Changmin clutches Yunho’s hand and jiggles from foot to foot.  
  
“I’m so nervous. Why am I so nervous?” he whispers. Yunho gives him a tight smile but doesn’t say anything, and Changmin knows what he’s thinking.  
  
“Hey,” he says. “We’re in this together, okay? If I get the discharge form but you don’t I’ll just stay another three months till the next evaluation, and vice versa. That’s what we decided, remember?”  
  
Yunho’s smile softens around the edges. “I know. I guess I’m just nervous too.”  
  
They spot Minyoung come into the room and rush over to her. She laughs at their eager expression.  
  
“For the love of god Minyoungie give us some good news,” Yunho says. She makes a great show of flipping open her file and adjusting her reading glasses.  
  
“Hmm let’s see now. Patient Shim Changmin . . .” she pauses. “Recommended for discharge by Dr Kim.”  
  
Changmin makes a strangled sound. But it’s not over yet, and he clutches Yunho’s hand tighter as Minyoung reads further down the list.  
  
“Patient Jung Yunho,” she says. “Also recommended for discharge by Dr Kim, though she wishes to continue sessions with him for a period of three months.”  
  
She looks up at their stunned expressions and smiles.  
  
“Congratulations boys. Just as soon as the paperwork is through you’re free to go. Though lord knows I’ll miss having you around.”  
  
There’s a pause, then they both swoop in at once and hug her.  
  
“Oh my god, I can’t believe this is really happening,” Changmin blubbers into her shoulder. Minyoung laughs and pats them both. They draw apart and Changmin meets Yunho’s eye and sees his own hope and elation reflected there.  
  
“We’re leaving,” Yunho whispers. “We’re really leaving.”  
  
“Do you know what this means?” Changmin says. He moves closer, gets right up in Yunho’s space. Behind them, the common room buzzes with the noise of nurses, orderlies and patients.  
  
“What?” Yunho blinks.  
  
“It means I can do this,” Changmin puts his arm around Yunho, tilts him back and kisses him full on the mouth, right in front of half the hospital. Silence falls, and then someone catcalls, and someone else laughs, and then the noise starts up again like it’s all perfectly normal.  
  
Changmin grins and sets a dazed Yunho back on his feet.  
  
“That was incredibly inappropriate,” Yunho pants.  
  
“I know and I loved it,” Changmin grins.  
  
Yunho laughs softly. He looks a little scared and lost, though he hides it well. But Changmin knows, and he pulls Yunho into his arms and hugs him tight.  
  
“I’m here hyung. I’m not going to leave you,” he whispers.  
  
Yunho doesn’t say anything, but his arms tightening around Changmin are answer enough.  
  
\- - -  
  
Everything seems to happen very quickly after that. Their discharge papers are signed and finalized within weeks and all too soon Changmin finds himself needing to pack their things. Yunho is terrible at packing and only gets in the way, so Changmin banishes him from the room while he gets everything together. All their stuff seemed to have merged together, just like their lives, and after wasting an hour trying to separate their socks Changmin gives up and decides to just pack it all wherever it fits.  
  
He doesn’t realize how much time has passed until he looks up and sees Yunho lounging in the doorway with a pout on his face.  
  
“Can I come in now?” he asks. “It’s almost lights out.”  
  
Changmin smiles and drops one last folded shirt into his suitcase. “I’ll finish the rest tomorrow.”  
  
Yunho closes the door behind him and jumps onto the bed. He shuffles over on his stomach until he’s nose-to-nose with Changmin, still sitting cross-legged on the floor.  
  
“Thanks for doing my packing for me,” Yunho says.  
  
“You’d probably just shove everything in in a pile and then sit on the suitcase to zip it up,” Changmin says.  
  
“I would,” Yunho admits unabashedly. Changmin gives him a wry smile.  
  
“How on earth did you manage without me.”  
  
“I didn’t.” Yunho’s expression softens and he reaches out to tuck Changmin’s hair behind his ear. “I didn’t manage. Not really.”  
  
Changmin blinks at him for a second, then leans up and kisses him. Yunho’s eyelashes tremble against his cheek, his lips parting easily, his breath hot and sweet.  
  
It’s a soft and slow sort of kiss.  
  
An I-was-half-a-person-until-I-met-you sort of kiss.  
  
\- - -  
  
On the day that they’re supposed to leave Changmin wakes up to an empty bed. He rolls over into Yunho’s still-warm spot and breathes in his scent, then forces himself upright and goes looking for him.  
  
He finds Yunho on the roof watching the sunrise. Changmin shuffles into his arms, yawning and still half-asleep, and Yunho holds him until the sun is up.  
  
“This was my favorite spot in the hospital,” Yunho murmurs. Changmin knows – it’s why he brought Yunho up here for his birthday. He hums against his shoulder.  
  
“Are you going to miss it?” he asks.  
  
“Probably.” A pause. “It’s okay. We’ll just find a new favorite spot.”  
  
Changmin smiles. We, not I. He tugs Yunho’s head down and kisses him, soft and pliant in the morning light, then they untangle themselves and go back in. There are still some things to do, last-minute stuff to pack and papers to sign and, for Changmin, one last appointment with Dr Kim. She even hugs him at the end of it and he’s so shocked he almost forgets to hug her back.  
  
By mid afternoon he’s ready to leave, and goes looking for Yunho to tell him. Earlier Yunho’d had a visitor and Changmin hasn’t seen him since. He wonders if he’s still in the visitors’ lounge and wanders up to the second floor. A group of nurses are standing in the hallway talking in hushed voices, and as he passes them he hears words like ‘poor dear’ and ‘such a tragedy’.  
  
Curious, Changmin goes over to them and they step aside to make room for him in their circle.  
  
“What’s going on?” he asks.  
  
“You haven’t heard dear? That visitor Yunho had . . .she told him his mother passed away last week.”  
  
Changmin’s blood seems to freeze in his veins. “What?” he whispers. “How?”  
  
“That’s the worst part,” one of the other nurses says softly. “It was a suicide. She killed herself.”  
  
The ground rushes up to meet him. Changmin stumbles back, his heart pounding double time as panic sets in.  
  
“Where is he? Where’s Yunho?” he asks urgently.  
  
“We took him back to his room. Don’t worry dear, there’s an orderly watching him,” the same nurse says.  
  
Changmin feels like shaking her. “Which orderly?”  
  
“That new one – Hyemi, I think her name is?”  
  
“The new orderly sucks!” Changmin almost screams. He turns and runs, the hallway flashing past in a blur, his heartbeat pounding a desperate tattoo of  _no no please god no._  They don’t understand – they don’t know Yunho like he does. They don’t know what this news will have done to him.  
  
He bursts into their room. Yunho isn’t there, but a shattered mirror lies on the floor, its pieces scattered across the carpet.  
  
“Fuck fuck fuck fuck,” Changmin chants, stumbling back out. He pauses only long enough to kick the new orderly’s chair and jerk her out of her doze.  
  
“If anything’s happened to him,” Changmin leans down and snarls in her face. “I’ll kill you. And then I’ll find your family and I’ll kill them.”  
  
He leaves her gaping and frozen and runs out towards the grounds. The gardens are deserted and Changmin spins on the spot, breathless and terrified.  
  
“Yunho!” he yells. “ _Yunho!_ ”  
  
A movement on the roof catches his eye. Changmin stares, then springs into action and sprints back inside. There’s only one person in the hospital with hair like sunshine.  
  
He takes the stairs two at a time, too impatient to wait for the elevator. Someone calls out from behind him but Changmin isn’t listening. The door of the roof looms in front of him and he wrenches it open and stumbles through.  
  
The sight that greets him almost sends him crashing to the ground.  
  
Yunho is standing near the edge of the roof, tearstained and covered in blood. He’s holding a shard of broken mirror in one hand and fresh cuts stand out against his wrists. Changmin freezes.  
  
“Yunho,” he calls softly. Yunho whirls to face him and stumbles back. Behind the tears his eyes are blank and uncomprehending.  
  
“It’s all my fault,” he whispers.  
  
“Yunho please,” Changmin takes a careful step forward, eyes on the mirror in Yunho’s hand.  
  
“She always blamed herself for what happened to me. Seeing me in here killed her inside, it’s why she stopped visiting.”  
  
“It’s not your fault baby,” Changmin whispers. He takes another step forward. “It didn’t have anything to do with you. Please, just give me the mirror – ”  
  
Yunho’s eyes flash. He raises the shard threateningly and takes a step back. “Don’t come near me.”  
  
Tears blur Changmin’s vision. There’s blood everywhere, so much blood it’s a miracle Yunho is still conscious. He tries to calculate the distance between them, wonders if he could bridge it quickly enough to disarm Yunho.  
  
The shard slashes down towards Yunho’s wrist and Changmin stops breathing.  
  
“No!” he lunges towards Yunho and grabs his hand. Yunho snarls and tries to fight him off, both of them almost slipping on the blood on the floor.  
  
“Let – go of it – ” Changmin grits out. He can’t get a firm grip on Yunho’s fingers, the blood covering his hand making them slippery.  
  
“Get off me!” Yunho pushes him and whirls around. The shard stabs up, slashing wildly through the air, and sinks deep into Changmin’s side.  
  
Changmin jerks, then chokes on a scream as pain shrieks through him. Cold with shock, Yunho lets go of the mirror and catches him as he starts to fall. But he’s too weak to hold him up, and they both crumple to the ground together.  
  
The last thing Changmin sees are a blur of legs as orderlies and nurses rush onto the roof.  
  
 _Yunho,_  he thinks, then his world goes black.

 


	11. Chapter 11

  
Changmin comes to three days later in the emergency ward of the hospital. They tell him he had to have surgery to remove the shard, that he’s lucky to be alive, but Changmin pushes all that aside and looks around frantically.  
  
“Yunho,” he whispers. “Where’s Yunho?”  
  
He was transferred to the state hospital for emergency treatment, they say. He’s alive, but just barely. His discharge papers have been retracted, and Changmin is forbidden to see him. Yunho did almost kill him after all.  
  
His family comes to take him away and Changmin cries and struggles in their hold. He begs them to let him stay a little longer, just long enough to make sure Yunho gets back to Gonjiam safe and sound, but they shake their heads and pull him away. It’s toxic, they say, for him to linger in the hospital any longer. Just before they leave Minyoung presses a phone number into his hand and promises to let him know when Yunho gets back. Changmin nods and thanks her, polite to a fault. Inside, he’s screaming.  
  
Initially, being back in the real world is too overwhelming for him to handle. Simple things like going to the convenience store leave him a terrified, quaking mess, and for the first time in his life Changmin becomes acutely aware of how helpless he would be without the support of his family. His sisters sit with him and hold his hand until he’s calm again, or his mother will make his favorite foods until he smiles at her. Even his father sometimes gives him a gruff pat on the shoulder, which from him is the equivalent of a hug and a kiss. Changmin wonders what would have happened if their plans had worked out and he and Yunho had moved in together, if they would have destroyed each other with mutual fear or if everything would have been fine because at least they’d be together.  
  
He makes secret phone calls to Minyoung and she tells him that Yunho is back at Gonjiam and physically well again. Changmin begs and begs her to let him speak to him.  
  
“Please Minyoung,” he whispers. “I just want to hear his voice.”  
  
She sighs. “I can’t dear. He’s put himself in solitary confinement ever since he got back. He doesn't speak to anyone these days unless it’s Dr Kim.”  
  
Changmin swallows and eventually thanks her and hangs up. He tries to focus on other things, to get his life back on track. He sends out half-hearted applications to various universities, and is surprised when he gets acceptance letters from three. Everyone tells him to move on, to focus on his bright new future, but what none of them understand is that without Yunho Changmin can feel his hard-won sanity slipping away from him all over again. He sees Yunho’s shadow around every corner. Everything reminds him of the other man – trees, buildings, sunlight, the moon. Half the things in the suitcase he brought from Gonjiam are Yunho’s, and he spends an hour crying over socks before his mother finds him and gently tells him she’ll unpack the rest.  
  
Heartsick, lonely and scared that he’s slipping back into madness, Changmin calls Dr Kim and asks to resume therapy with her. She welcomes him back into her office, but after a few sessions she tells him that they are unnecessary, that his schizophrenia is under control as long as he keeps taking his medication and that she’s done all she can for him. Still, Changmin keeps going to see her and after a while she cottons on to why he really comes.  
  
“He asked about you, you know,” she says one afternoon when they’re playing chess, for lack of anything better to do. “When he found out I was seeing you again.”  
  
Changmin’s head snaps up. He wonders how desperate the look on his face must be that instead of saying something blunt about it Dr Kim simply moves her queen away from his knight.  
  
“He asked if you were okay,” she says.  
  
Changmin wonders if he bursts into tears whether Dr Kim would kick him out of her office. He swallows and takes his turn.  
  
“What did you say?” he asks.  
  
“The truth,” Dr Kim shrugs. “That you’re a lot better than you think you are. He asked why you were seeing me then and I told him maybe you’re just attracted to my incredible charm and good looks.”  
  
A ghost of a smile flickers across Changmin’s face. “I’m sure that went down well.”  
  
“Not really. He almost started crying.”  
  
Changmin looks up at her.  
  
“Because I closed the door on his foot,” Dr Kim clarifies. “Not because he thought I was serious.”  
  
Changmin bites his lip to hold back a helpless laugh. If Yunho was back to being bullied by Dr Kim then he must be doing better than he’d thought.  
  
For a while he entertains the idea of Yunho turning up on his doorstep one day and sweeping him into his arms and telling him everything was going to be okay. But after six months pass without a word, Changmin forces himself to accept the bitter truth: Yunho is never going to leave Gonjiam. The hospital that was once his salvation is going to become his tomb. If he couldn’t leave it with Changmin at his side, then there was no way he’d get out on his own.  
  
Changmin gets home from classes one day to find the house unnaturally quiet. It’s later in the evening and the place should be bustling with activity, his mother getting dinner ready and yelling for his sisters to help her, his father parked in front of the TV after a long day at work. Changmin takes his shoes off in the foyer and drops his bag beside them.  
  
“Mum?” he calls. “Dad?”  
  
He wanders down the front hall and, thinking he hears a sound from the living room, veers to the left.  
  
“Sooyeon? Jiyeon?” he calls for his sisters before rounding the corner. “Where is every . . .one . . .”  
  
Changmin freezes in the doorway. Sitting side by side on the sofa are his parents. And kneeling on the carpet in front of them, hands on his knees and head bowed in supplication, is Yunho.  
  
Gone is the flashy blonde hair, now a more natural dark brown. He looks thinner, and in the six months since Changmin last saw him he seems to have aged several years. But his gaze is fierce and bright, and he drinks in the sight of Changmin with the intensity of a parched and dying man.  
  
Changmin’s brain jams. His fingers tighten on the edge of the doorway until his knuckles turn white. There’s a short silence, then his mother rises and leads him into the room.  
  
“Yunho came to ask our forgiveness honey. He says he wishes to speak to you alone,” she says quietly.  
  
Changmin opens his mouth, fails to find any words, swallows, and then tries again.  
  
“Yes,” he manages. “Yes, that would be good.”  
  
His parents hesitate. “Are you sure – ” his father starts. Changmin can’t look away from Yunho, head spinning at the way he’s gazing at him.  
  
“Please,” he whispers.  
  
His parents sigh and get to their feet. His father murmurs that they’ll be just in the next room, and his mother lingers in the doorway for a long moment before eventually turning to leave. The door swings shut behind them and in their absence silence falls.  
  
Changmin forces himself to move. He goes to kneel in front of Yunho, their knees inches apart, and stares and stares at him and Yunho looks back at him like he could spend an eternity simply memorizing the lines of Changmin’s face.  
  
Changmin wants to say a million things, like  _I miss you so much every day I want to die_  and  _why don’t any of your socks have matching pairs?_  and  _I forgive you_  and  _I love you I love you I love you._  
  
Instead what he says is: “You got out.”  
  
Yunho’s eyes flicker. “Yeah.”  
  
“How?” Changmin whispers. Yunho smiles slightly.  
  
“Because this time I had someone on the outside who I needed to see.”  
  
Changmin trembles. His fingers twist and tangle in his lap and he looks down, unable to hold Yunho’s gaze any longer.  
  
“Changmin,” Yunho says softly. “I’m sorry. I’m so so sorry. Honestly, after what happened I think your parents are completely justified in wanting to keep us apart. But I needed to see you – I wanted to tell you face-to-face how sorry I am – ” Yunho cuts himself off and swallows. Changmin can tell from his voice that he’s fighting tears.  
  
“I heard you put yourself in solitary confinement,” Changmin says. “Who the hell does that? Solitary confinement’s the worst punishment they’ve got.”  
  
Yunho gives a wet little laugh. “I needed time to think. To figure out what I was doing with my life. When I woke up in the hospital and I realized what I’d done to you – I wanted to die, more than I’ve ever wanted to die before. The only thing that kept me alive were all the machines they had me hooked up to and the fact that I was too weak to do anything about it.” Yunho pauses. Changmin doesn’t realize he’s holding his breath until silence falls between them.  
  
“Go on,” he prompts. Yunho takes a deep breath.  
  
“After a few days I had a visitor. You remember – my aunt was the one who came and told me – ”  
  
“That your mum passed away, yeah.” Changmin looks down. He wasn’t likely to forget that day anytime soon.  
  
“She told me that before she died mum’s last wish had been for her to tell me everything, but that she hadn’t had the heart to pile it all on at once. She told me how mum had been battling depression for years before they admitted me to Gonjiam, how it was why my parents split, how she'd been too ashamed to face me after condemning me for something she also suffered from . . .”  
  
Changmin stares at him, struggling to comprehend the pandora’s box of family secrets Yunho’s mother had left behind her. “You didn’t know,” he says. “You didn’t know she was sick.”  
  
Yunho gives a tiny nod. “I didn’t know. By the time I was old enough to understand it I was too caught up in my own issues to notice, and then I was in Gonjiam and the gulf between us just became wider and wider. Dad was gone and my sister’s studying overseas, so in the end it was just her and the ghost of me following her everywhere and she just . . .couldn’t take it anymore.”  
  
Yunho’s voice has grown distant as he speaks, his gaze fixed on some point on the wall. Changmin wants to touch him, to hold and comfort him somehow, but he doesn’t want to interrupt. Eventually Yunho sighs and meets his eye.  
  
“After I got back to Gonjiam I realized . . .I couldn’t continue this cycle of self-abuse. Killing myself would be a coward’s way out. I had to live, for her sake. I had to live long enough to see you again, to tell you how sorry I was and that you saved my life, even if you wanted nothing more to do with me.”  
  
A long silence follows Yunho’s speech. Changmin swallows. He wants to say so many things and each one feels more inconsequential than the last. He gazes around the room and tries to get his thoughts in order.  
  
“I got into Yonsei University,” he says at last. A smile breaks out across Yunho’s face, painful and brilliant.  
  
“That’s so great,” he breathes. “Congratulations. I mean of course you did, you’re so smart Changminnie you could get into any university you wanted – ”  
  
“I got into three,” Changmin says. “But I chose Yonsei. Want to know why?”  
  
Yunho blinks and nods.  
  
“They have a really good nursing program.”  
  
Yunho closes his eyes. Now he’s the one trembling. His fingers clench and unclench on his knees.  
  
“You told me once that you’re only sane when you’re with me,” he says. “Do you remember that?”  
  
Changmin nods, vision blurring.  
  
“Since then I’ve realized I can only be happy when I’m with you.”  
  
Changmin doesn't realize he’s crying until he tastes salt water on his lips. He swallows and gasps.  
  
“I can let you go Changmin, if that’s what you want,” Yunho whispers. “But I don’t think I can live without you. I won’t.”  
  
There’s a pause, then they both rise to their feet at the same time. Changmin flings himself into Yunho’s arms and buries his face in his neck and trembles and trembles in his hold.  
  
“Don’t you ever  _ever_  talk about taking your own life again,” Changmin whispers fiercely. “Don’t even think it. Or I’ll – I’ll kill you.”  
  
Yunho chokes on a laugh and hugs him so tight he lifts Changmin off the ground. “Oh god, Changmin – I was so afraid – after what happened, I was so sure you'd never take me back – ”  
  
“Stupid,” Changmin sobs. “You’re so stupid. Did you really think you could get rid of me that easily?”  
  
Yunho lifts his head, cups Changmin’s face in his hands and kisses him, hard and fierce and breathless.  
  
He’s crying so it’s wet and messy and the single most perfect kiss Changmin has ever received.  
  
A you-saved-me-from-myself kiss.  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some fun facts:  
> 。Gonjiam Psychiatric Hospital was a real mental hospital in Gyeonggi-do and is today considered one of the three most haunted spots in South Korea. [Check out some of the creepy pics from this place.](http://www.flickr.com/photos/stevenchea/sets/72157627475012619/)  
> 。The rate of involuntary admissions into South Korean mental hospitals is around 90-92%, the 3rd highest in the world. This has led to [some seriously messed up abuses](http://netizenbuzz.blogspot.com.au/2013/01/maybe-dramas-arent-so-unrealistic-after.html) of the current mental health laws.  
> 。Mental health is still a pretty taboo issue in S.Korea and people are more likely to try and hide the fact that something is wrong than to seek help for themselves or loved ones (especially the older generation). Just to put Yunho's abandonment and family issues into context.  
> 。There was one more thing but I forgot LOL anyway hope you all enjoyed this fic!


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